Police raid wrong house, handcuff 76-year-old stroke victim
Posted on | March 25, 2012 | 1 Comment
[Seventy-six year old Fred] Skinner doesn’t hear as well as he used to, but there was no missing the pair of crashes he heard late in the morning on March 13.
The first was at the outside door to his front porch and the second was at the inner door from the porch to his living room. About eight uniformed police officers burst into his kitchen, finding him at the table with a plate of breakfast crumbs….
The officers spread out into the basement and second floor then quickly returned. Someone was handcuffing Skinner’s arms behind his back when they looked through the mail on the table and saw his name.
“They said, ‘Is this your name?’” Skinner said. “I said, ‘Yes.’ Then they said, ‘Wrong house.’”
The officers left as quickly as they came, leaving his doorknob on the porch floor and the two doors broken open. The whole incident took five minutes….
The raid was conducted by the Rochester Police Department and the Finger Lakes Drug Task Force, which is led by the Auburn Police Department and, in this case, also involved the Cayuga County Sheriff’s Office.
No one involved would specify the purpose of the raid or say why the officers broke into the wrong house. No arrests have been made in the original drug case, which is still active.
The Rochester Police Department was the lead agency. Department spokesman Stephen Scott declined to comment but said there is an investigation into the incident.
“We haven’t determined there was a mistake yet; the investigation is still ongoing,” he said.
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Tags: auburn police > cayuga county > drug task force > fred skinner > rochester police
It’s St. Patrick’s Day, and that means Guinness
Posted on | March 17, 2012 | 2 Comments
…and the music of the Pogues.
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“Game Change”, by the Liberal Filmmakers Jay Roach and Tom Hanks
Posted on | March 9, 2012 | 1 Comment
Game Change The Movie, as opposed to Game Change The Book, focuses only on Sarah Palin and the McCain campaign, ignoring the juicy drama of Hillary and Bill playing the race card or John Edwards’ fathering a child with a woman not his dying wife. OK, fine. There’s only so much you can cram into a made-for-TV movie. And while news outlets that are never confused with right wing talk radio or “Faux News” have no problem pointing out the left-wing pedigree of the producers, The New York Times again can’t seem to bring itself to actually report anything that is relevant.
And it would be fine, if the Times regularly abstained from characterizing the political stance of producers and directors of politically charged docudramas. In its review of the HBO movie:
On Sunday night Reelz will show “The Undefeated,” a two-hour documentary that its creators say was “inspired” by Ms. Palin’s memoir, “Going Rogue: An American Life.” Made by the conservative filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon, it’s a hallucinatory hagiography that uses baby pictures, Scripture, re-enactments and nature films of lions devouring zebras to chronicle Ms. Palin’s martyrdom at the hands of the left. (Andrew Breitbart, the right-wing blogger who died just over a week ago, delivers a fire-breathing testimonial.)
There’s a twofer. A “conservative filmmaker” and a “right-wing blogger” – although Breitbart was a “blogger” in the sense that the Atlantic or the Washington Post is a “blog”, but that’s another issue entirely.
The above quote is from the same story that discusses Game Change. But there’s no mention of the political leanings of the producers or stars of Game Change. Imagine:
On Saturday night HBO will show “Game Change,” a TV movie that its creators say was “inspired” by the book of the same name, though leaving out most of the storylines. Made by the liberal filmmaker Jay Roach, it’s a hallucinatory liberal smear job that uses thinly-sourced journalism and Democratic donor Ed Harris and hemp-activist Woody Harrelson to chronicle the slander of Ms. Palin’s by the left. (Julianne Moore, the left-wing actress, delivers a sexless performance.)
Oh well. What’ll they think of next? Getting leftist Meryl Streep to play Margaret Thatcher or something?
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Sell an Irish coffee, go to prison?
Posted on | March 3, 2012 | 4 Comments
The New York State Senate has passed a law making the sale of caffeinated alcoholic beverages a felony.
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Despite sexually loaded behavior, NY School stymied in firing teacher
Posted on | February 26, 2012 | 1 Comment
Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, NY):
For years, teacher Valerie Yarn sent unwanted sexually suggestive letters, emails and presents to her bosses in the Rochester School District.
Yet even after she spent time in jail for violating a court order one principal obtained against her, court records show that Yarn was able to keep her job as a physical education teacher. It was not long, school officials say, before she turned her unwanted advances on a new target — her students — forcing them to remove their shirts and bras in gym class, saying that she needed to conduct a physical evaluation….
The case underscores the difficulty New York school systems face removing problem teachers from the classroom. State law and union contracts make it difficult to remove tenured teachers from their positions, even in cases that involve misconduct with students. Hearings seeking termination can drag on for years and cost districts thousands of dollars, ultimately deterring many from going through the process.
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Why Romney Will Win (the Nomination and the Election)
Posted on | February 21, 2012 | 7 Comments
Despite the current conniptions over a possibly contested convention in Tampa, Romney will gain the delegates necessary before then. Even though the GOP has done an admirable thing with most states allocating proportionally rather than winner-take-all. Proportional allocation guarantees a longer primary fight.
And if, for some reason, Romney does not have the numbers come August, then Santorum, Gingrich and Paul can hold to their delegates and hope to get others to turn, or they can be kingmaker and release them with an endorsement. Gingrich isn’t releasing delegates. Paul has made it clear his candidacy is about power at the convention. Getting his views heard and on the platform. So, an audit of the Federal Reserve will be in the GOP platform.
But if Paul then has to pick among Gingrich, Santorum and Romney, Who’s he going to pick? It won’t be Gingrich and his big government solutions proclivities. It won’t be Santorum, as Paul’s live and let live philosophy doesn’t gel well with Santorum’s righteous religious conservatism. No, Paul will support Romney because of Mitt’s free market principles, and an understanding that Romneycare was little more than a conservative trying to figure out how to “get things done” in a very liberal state with a very liberal legislature (the legislature would have done worse without Romney and would have overridden any veto). Paul won’t fear Romney as being some bedroom-invading social conservative, knows his instincts are free market capitalism, and that Romney’s foreign policy may very well be less interventionist than the record of both Santorum and Gingrich.
So, there you go.
I’m a political junkie. I talk a lot about politics. A lot of 2008 Obama voters are not pleased with the president’s performance, and I’ve heard many say they’d be willing to vote for Romney. Even more Republicans have said they will never vote for Gingrich, but vote third party. The independents won’t warm to Santorum, as he’s an easy target to make “scary”, fairly or not. Romney can beat Obama easily, especially as there’s a hunger for competent, grown-up management after pie-eyed hope. Romeny would win with as many as 350 electoral votes. Romney wouldn’t be fighting to win North Carolina – it’d be in the bag. The battle would be waged in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Blue states. Not in Virginia, Nevada, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Ohio, Florida or Indiana (tradtional red states).
Add Christie or Rubio to the ticket, it’s even easier.
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Federal Review Composite Poll
Posted on | February 20, 2012 | 8 Comments
Yes, we will be resuming the Federal Review Composite Poll this year. As it has always been, it will be a meta analysis of polls, state-by-state. Unlike the pedestrian Real Clear Politics average, it will be based upon a weighted analysis of polls based upon margin of error, sample size, respondent type. We have done this since 2000, and have predicted the winner in each of 2000, 2004 and 2008, only getting 2 states wrong – but noting those were toss-ups (Wisconsin in 2004, North Carolina in 2008). So, stay tuned.
Based on our historic analysis, we believe that a Romney / Obama matchup would yield a Romney victory in excess of 300 electoral votes. But it’s early. Way early. Santorum could compete, but it would be a nail biter. When we get closer to having a GOP nominee, we’ll start running the numbers and posting our analysis.
In the meantime, why don’t you predict how the battlegrounds will come out. Ohio. Pennsylvania. Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Iowa, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Nevada, Indiana, Tennessee, Arkansas. Florida.
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Disability claims soar, help mask true unemployment rate
Posted on | February 19, 2012 | 1 Comment
From the New York Post:
With their unemployment-insurance checks running out, some of the country’s long-term jobless are scrambling to fill the gap by filing claims for mental illness and other disabilities with Social Security — a surge that hobbles taxpayers and making the employment rate look healthier than it should as these people drop out of the job statistics.
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“I have a dream…of low, low, prices…”
Posted on | January 13, 2012 | Comments Off
Sears is having a Martin Luther King Day Sale.
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Jon Stewart disappointed Obama not more of a dictator
Posted on | September 19, 2011 | 5 Comments
Over in Rolling Stone, Jon Stewart, “the Walter Cronkite of this generation,” frets that the president hasn’t done more to circumvent the Constitution’s separation of powers:
I’m surprised at how much he deferred to the legislative process. He’s accomplished some things, and I’m sure he’s pleased with what he’s done, but I would have preferred to see something a little bit more transformative.
Stewart is in his mid-forties and obviously steeped in pop culture. He must have seen the “How a Bill Becomes Law” episode of “Schoolhouse Rock” a couple of hundred of times by now.
I can only assume the Daily Show writers haven’t yet told Stewart that Obama had a filibuster-proof Democratic majority in congress when he took office.
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